Description
Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in absinthe-graphql absinthe allows unauthenticated denial of service via quadratic fragment-name uniqueness validation.
'Elixir.Absinthe.Phase.Document.Validation.UniqueFragmentNames':run/2 iterates over all fragments and for each one calls duplicate?/2, which evaluates Enum.count(fragments, &(&1.name == name)) — a full linear scan of the fragment list. The result is O(N²) comparisons per document, where N is the number of fragment definitions supplied by the caller.
Because input.fragments is built directly from the GraphQL query body, N is fully attacker-controlled. A minimum-size fragment definition is roughly 16 bytes, so a ~1 MB document carries ~60,000 fragments and forces ~3.6 × 10⁹ comparisons inside this single validation phase. No authentication, schema knowledge, or special configuration is required.
This issue affects absinthe: from 1.2.0 before 1.10.2.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| absinthe-graphql | absinthe | 1.2.0 – < 1.10.2 | 1.10.2 |
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hex | absinthe | >= 1.2.0, < 1.10.2 | 1.10.2 | EEF-CVE-2026-43967 |
References
- https://github.com/absinthe-graphql/absinthe/security/advisories/GHSA-9mhv-8h52-q7q2 vendor-advisory related
- https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-43967.html related
- https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-43967 related
- https://github.com/absinthe-graphql/absinthe/commit/223600c520493dcaf95080af552c413099f92c9d patch